Friday, 27 July 2012

We've been her for over two years now and it's about time we started putting our mark on the place - well you'd think! I'm usually pretty good at killing off plants that I try to grow, so it's quite rare that I put myself in charge of plants. Those that seed themselves - well that's another story!

So a while ago I found a little seeling growing as normal almost in a doorway. I left it alone and let it do it's own thing - now look at it! Just the one little floret found and away it goes!

It isn't quite ready to harvest yet - the seeds need to be formed properly. Many people think that this is when you get the best of colours but for me it needs to be when the plant has gone over to seed. I collected some weld once that was almost dead. The colours I obtained were the best ever!

So in the mean time I will plan what I can do with the first weld plant of the new home - it really has to be something special!

Monday, 23 July 2012

Just home from a gloriously sunny Azincourt - so totally, unbelievably different to last weekend in the UK!

It was one of those busy weekends where John goes to one event and I to another - John was working at Kelmarsh demonstrating paper making in the children's area and I was running the stall at Fibre East about 20 miles down the road.

Kelmarsh was the first to get to - we drove onto the field and parked up to wait and be told where to set up, it looked very soggy, but vans were able to drive across the grass at this point so we followed the quad bike to the tree where John was to set his awning up. Once everything that he needed (including the copper full of water) was ready and safely covered so that the weather couldn't get at it overninght we moved on to Thurleigh.

This field looked practically dry in comparison as we had managed to drive the van over the ground at Kelmarsh, it gave us high hopes for Fibre East! Tent was put up and we started setting the stall out to look like a shop. At about 8pm we decided to go for a walk round the marquees to see who was there - lots of the traders had already set up and covered their stalls, so we didn't get to see many people, but stopped to chat to Debbie and Peter T in marquee 3. The heavens opened - with a vengeance. We thought about running back to our tent but decided to wait and see if the rain passed over. It didn't! Then we saw the water level on the ground start to rise. We wernt back to Debbie and suggested she lift everything up that was on the ground and we started going round the stalls in the marquee. Several has baskets and boxes that could be damaged and the water level was getting higher so we started lifting things up...........it was scarily wet!

When the rain eased a little we ran back to our tent to see what was happening there, luckily the lowest part was where my bed was going to be - I would have a "water bed" but nothing was getting damaged, the tent was doing its job! As John was staying for the first night I could sleep in the van thank goodness!

The rain continued overnight. By the next morning there was a very soggy field with several "ponds" around -so sad to see! John made a phone call early in the morning to be told that Kelmarsh was cancelled for Saturday and decided to stay with me for the day (he was later told that the event was cancelled for the weekend). If you would like to see the reason for cancelling the event take a look here and here !

At Fibre East the attitude was really upbeat - that was going ahead, the farm team were really helpful and positive, the FE team themselveds were positive and the traders sorted themselves out and got ready for opening!

The people came, lots of them. It was wonderful to see and the atmosphere at the event was great - we had a ball! Interesting footwear was noted - from fancy wellies to bare feet - and commented upon! We put a groundsheet down in our tent so we didn't churn up like the marqees, in fact we were a little haven of non squelching mud! (although I did try to get everyone singing......"Squelch, squelch, squelch, squelch. Squelch, squelch, squelch, squelch.....")

Many thanks to all the team at Fibre East you did a great job in unkind conditions it was a pleasure to be there!